Saturday 31 December 2011

Have a kiss at midnight...x

I lay in bed this morning, the clock ticking away to a respectable 7:30am as the darkened air of the bedroom began to fill with the chatter and life of 2 little girls and a yawning husband. The final day of 2011 is upon us and with the final opening of eyes this side of 2011, the prelude to the  turn of the year welcomed with it a wish-wash, dreamy haze of memories and wishes: all that has been and all that may be.

I am not one for resolutions, per se. The same things that I would scribble on my to-do and not-to-do lists which should traditionally define the skeleton of the looming year will be much the same as the things that I hope to accomplish every day...my desire to be a thoughtful friend, a true wife, a dedicated mother, an avid listener, a healthy body and full, rich soul are all simple, honest declarations of  that which I wish my character to be but which are characteristics that even for the best of us are a work in progress and, in my case, will span the decades of my life until I take my final breath. It takes a strong heart and sharp mind to tackle the obstacles that interrupt smooth running, it requires a sturdy grasp on that which is important over that which is monumental...I'm still trying...

..The flight of a soul to a higher place is a moment that can stop time for each and every one of us, envelop us in sorrow and guilt and relief and distrust. It has been in the lives of my family this year as it had the previous and it undoubtedly  stole a little piece of what we ultimately needed just to carry on: gratitude. How can you be grateful when your life is torn either to pieces or around the edges? Gratitude- the softened area of our existence that is nudging, calm, peripheral but should not be underestimated...if your wish-wash dreamy haze of 2011 points you towards edging each and every remaining second away in order to catalpult into a new year remember this: all that has been will follow you until you find a smudge of good in the whole picture. Look back and think...remember that morning in spring when sunlight poured through your drapes instead of a gloom of grey February. Remember that one time when you took a walk for a little longer than you intended and felt the vibrations of heightened energy fill your lungs? When somebody told you that you looked nbice when you had been traumatized all day about the state of your hair. And that instance when you felt that nothing could or would or should go right for you, that the weeks were getting longer and harder and there was just no way out of the mess. Until a little chink of light seeped in through the cracks, caught hold of your innate need for a better time, and started to inject into the outer edges of you, giving you a taste of what you needed: hope.

I am still in the haven of my home, still pondering how 2011 took away the souls of loved ones and gave me grief until I cried. I am also listening to a toddler, who has morphed from baby into chatterbox within 12 months and am paying heed to the language that only her and her sister seem to understand. Time does not revolve around ensuring that you make the most of it- it moves on as sure as the river reaches the sea and once a year, when we get the glorified opportunity to take a glance back over the many moon-changes of 12 months, it does at least provide a chance to remember one thing: you have come out the other side. Breathing, living, learning, laughing, crying...but here.

I'm not making a resolution but I will try this: to take a glance back through time a little more often than once a year and grasp at the 'ordinary' over the extraordinary. Not the deaths, not the births, not the winnings or losses...the breathing of sleeping children that I have had the fortune to hear every night and the kiss before bed that has never deserted me.

Have a kiss at midnight and bring in 2012 with the gratitude that it deserves- you'll reap rewards greater than any resolution will bring.

Merry New Year beautiful people, I love you all near and far :)))

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Look a little closer to the proverbial home...

As usual, cup of tea is steaming at the right hand side of my keyboard, my feet are the freezing extremity, burdened by my refusal to leave the bare-footedness behind that I have always preferred and two little voices, high-pitched with youth and gender but heightened by excitable squeals, resonates softly.

I have checked my emails, uploaded cherished photos that have so far captured the early sprites of festive mischief and wandered through the pages of social network.

I get a little message on the right hand side of the screen and without warning that familiar crackle of stinging teardrop swells in the corner of my eyes. It appears that this somebody is dearer to me without either that person or myself realising it.

 'Merry Christmas, I can't send a card but didn't want to forget you'.

 I know not exactly what it is that chokes me a little and makes me recline, take a sip of tea and smile inside and out. But something nudges at my sentimentality a touch but punches at my guilt with a fire behind it. It seems that I wasn't going to be forgotten about but I know, with a heavy hang of shame, that this person would not have been a part of my thoughts on this day, Christmas Eve or any other day; or not in any grand way in any case.

 I'm somewhat saddened and anxious that I can be blazĂ© about a human being who is also able to stir up such an emotion in me with a short and sweet ditty on facebook. It's time, I believe, to stop schmoozing with those immediately around me, quit cotton-wool-wrapping my nearest and dearest and look to what may seem a little further-afield but which is closer than one would imagine, withing grasp; take a stroll through the memory banks, the remnants of days gone by. Do not dwell on the past, they say; but what happens if your past is a collage of heritage, questions, answers and memoirs that were created before you even came to life. Some things are bigger than you, bigger than the present, and within a few fleeting but fervent seconds I have just had my eyes opened to this conclusion.

All at once, I am apt to look beyond the here and now and remember the people and the times and the places that are as much a part of my present as my past. They canot knock on  my door for coffee and cake but they can make me well up with a single line of innocent well-wishing. They share the fact that they too are a part of the same decisions and dalliances and dirty laundry and dear, dear domestic rollercoasters as I which, although somewhat sinister by themselves nonetheless combined to make a wonderful legacy and stories that I shall forever remember rolling off the animated tongue of my grandmother.

I love that I have not been forgotten when, for every intent and purpose, you would say I have no place in the thought process or memory of this one person. It takes a little stinging teardrop and a simple sentence sometimes to bring me back to a place of recognition and so I shall not forget you either.

Merry Christmas back :)